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  • #MeToo: When Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Leaves You Feeling Powerless

    In December 1997, three months after turning 20 years old, I graduated from college. In an effort to make some money before I left for grad school the following summer, and because nobody lives in my mother’s house for free, I got a job. Using my fabulous brand-new biology degree, I became a security specialist…

    By

    A. Downing

    Published

  • 5 Times James Baldwin Read White America

    Today marks 30 years since James Baldwin’s passing, and America seems to be as ignorant of its inherent racism as it was when Baldwin was writing and being an all-around brilliant man, scholar and activist. Sometimes I like to imagine a James Baldwin fan fiction of what he’d be doing today if he were still…

    By

    Amirah Mercer

    Published

  • Does Size Really Matter?

    In one of my previous posts, I asserted that I am, in fact, a size queen. I am also queen-size, but that’s a different post for a different time. Suffice it to say that when I made my claim to size-queen-dom, there were many who objected to my saying it and felt that it a)…

    By

    Monique Judge

    Published

  • Devon Wade Must Be Remembered for Disrupting the Prison Pipeline, Not Merely for How He Died

    I will never forget the first—and, unfortunately, what would be the only—time I had the pleasure of meeting Devon Tyrone Wade, the Columbia University Ph.D. student killed late Sunday night. He was charming, had a smile that lit the entire room and demanded attention in the most subtle ways. Through his social media posts, it…

    By

    Preston Mitchum

    Published

  • Girls and Gays: On the Tenuous Relationship Between Black Women and Queer Black Folk

    This past weekend, I was winding down after a fairly long Thanksgiving weekend by engaging in one of my guilty pleasures: The Real Housewives of Atlanta. After a long day, I was ready for some petty, funny mess. What I was not ready for was being blindsided by a transphobic “read.” The read in question?…

    By

    Clarkisha Kent

    Published

  • NFL Players Just Sold Kaepernick’s Protests for $100 Million. Are They Sellouts or Heroes?

    A group of players in the National Football League accepted an offer from NFL owners for $100 million for social justice causes in exchange for … umm … we want to use a term that expresses the exact sentiment while still conveying a modicum of journalistic integrity. We think the most precise way to describe…

    By

    Michael Harriot

    Published

  • In Praise of Sailor J: The Woke AF Beauty Vlogger We’ve Been Waiting For

    Sailor J thinks she knows my life. My entire insecure, aggressively honest (or just aggressive), disorganized and easily distracted Aries life. She also does one hell of a bronzed cat eye. The increasingly popular YouTuber—more than 120,000 subscribers and rising—first hit my radar in October with “Getting a Man 101”— a hilarious yet poignant take…

    By

    Maiysha Kai

    Published

  • I Got My 1st-Ever Brazilian, and It Changed My Life

    Welcome to The Root After Dark, where I get to talk about all the things Danielle Belton (our editor-in-chief), Genetta Adams (our managing editor) and Yesha Callahan (our deputy managing editor) won’t let me talk about during the day. This is going to be fun for me, and I hope it is fun and enjoyable…

    By

    Monique Judge

    Published

  • Photographer Afshin Shahidi Gives the World ‘a Private View’ of Prince’s Life

    Prince has had numerous photographers over the years, but there’s one who stuck out to the Purple One from the day they met: Afshin Shahidi. If his name is familiar, it’s because you know and adore his beautiful daughter, Yara Shahidi, who shines as Zoe on Black-ish and will continue to sprinkle her Black Girl…

    By

    Danielle Young

    Published